Whalen by Noelle Kocot

    What I mean is the sea.
    What I mean is a pale
    Piano filled with rainwater.
    What I mean is a box (colored blue)
    And an animal of light
    And air rushing through these vacant rooms.
    What I mean is, I’m sorry
    If things are lazy and not the same,
    If I travel without my candy soup.
    I no longer wish for what I cannot have,
    And yet I love you,
    Your being and recklessness,
    The way the light strands
    Itself in tomorrow,
    The way that book on dreams
    Seeps out dreams onto a plastic couch.
    What I mean is man, I don’t believe
    That oranges are not squares, that you
    Are not a paper ghost, that a balloon
    Of thought doesn’t clap its hands
    Lightly, over the frozen summer moon.

by Noelle Kocot
published in Slope #24